The present invention relates to a new data collection network and electrical power distribution network designed to reduce airplane wire weight and allow nearly complete wiring design and installation of wiring and equipment at the major structural levels.
A conventional aircraft distribution system is depicted in FIG. 1. Electrical power from engine mounted generators is fed to a main power distribution panel (PDP), generally in a forward E/E bay, which is co-located with the system controllers. Electrical power is then distributed from these Main power distribution panels to all the load equipment in the aircraft. Data sources are hardwired from sensors all around the aircraft to the System controllers in the E/E bay. Load control signals are hardwired from system controllers in the E/E bay to the individual loads that need to be controlled. This system results in large complex wire bundles which run the length of the airplane in some cases.
This invention is aimed at saving distribution engineering and fabrication costs by standardizing several new or modified Electrical components and putting them together in a fashion which allows different model airplanes to use the same components connected to common electrical sources and data buses. The system uses software files to control individual configuration variations of one model and variations from model to model.